A Complete Novel
Copyright 1918 by The Frank A. Munsey Company
It was a miserable night which brought me first in touch with JasonCroft. There was a rain and enough wind to send it in gusty dashesagainst the windows. It was the sort of a night when I always felt gladto cast off coat and shoes, don a robe and slippers, and sit downwith the curtains drawn, a lighted pipe, and the soft glow of a lampfalling across the pages of my book. I am, I admit, always strangelysusceptible to the shut-in sense of comfort afforded by a pipe, thesteady yellow of a light, and the magic of printed lines at a time ofelemental turmoil and stress.
It was with a feeling little short of positive annoyance that I heardthe door-bell ring. Indeed, I confess, I was tempted to ignore italtogether at first. But as it rang again, and was followed by a rapidtattoo of rapping, as of fists pounded against the door itself, I rose,laid aside my book, and stepped into the hall.
First switching on a porch-light, I opened the outer door, to revealthe figure of an old woman, somewhat stooping, her head covered by ashawl, which sloped wetly from her head to either shoulder, and wascaught and held beneath her chin by one bony hand.
"Doctor," she began in a tone of almost frantic excitement. "Dr.Murray—come quick!"
Perhaps I may as well introduce myself here as anywhere else. I am Dr.George Murray, still, as at the time of which I write, in charge of theState Mental Hospital in a Western State. The institution was not thenvery large, and since taking my position at the head of its staff I hadfound myself with considerable time for my study along the lines ofhuman psychology and the various powers and aberrations of the mind.
Also, I may as well confess, as a first step toward a betterunderstanding of my part in what followed, that for years before comingto the asylum I had delved more or less deeply into such studies,seeking to learn what I might concerning both the normal and theabnormal manifestations of mental force.
There is good reading and highly entertaining, I assure you, in thevarious philosophies dealing with life, religion, and the severalbeliefs regarding the soul of man. I was therefore fairly conversantnot only with the Occidental creeds, but with those of the Orientalraces as well. And I knew that certain of the Eastern sects hadadvanced in their knowledge far beyond our Western world. I hadeven endeavored to make their knowledge mine, so far as I could, incertain lines at least, and had from time to time applied some of thatknowledge to the treatment of cases in the institution of which I wasthe head.
But I was not thinking of anything like that as I looked at theshawl-wrapped face of the little bent woman, wrinkled and wry enoughto have been a very part of the storm which beat about her and blewback the skirts of my lounging-robe and chilled my ankles. I lived in aresidence detached from the asylum buildings proper, but none the lessa part of the institution; and, as a matter of fact, my sole thoughtwas a feeling of surprise that any one should have come here to findme, and despite the woman's manifest state of anxiety and haste, adecided reluctance to go with her quickly or otherwise on such a night.
I rather temporized: "But, my dear woman, surely there are otherdoctors for you to call. I am really not in general practice. I amconnected with the asylum—"
"And that is the very reason I always said I would come for you ifanything happened to Mr. Jason," she cut in.
"Whom?" I inquired, interested in spite of myself at this plainlypremeditat